Gina won Pasadena’s Best Citizen of the Year Award
Gina Zamparelli, the Sri Lankan-born model and Miss Universe runner up Maureen Hingert’s daughter, passed away in Los Angeles on May 21 at the age of 59, due to an aggressive form of brain cancer.
In her Face Book page, Gina had mentioned that she was managing Gina Zamparelli Concert Production. According to a Colorado music website, Gina, who was born in 1959 was the first woman music promoter to produce concerts in major venues with national-level artistes in the United States.
“She sold out every concert in over a decade of shows in Los Angeles, helping to break in many bands and secure them record deals. She had produced concerts at Perkins Palace, The Roxy Theatre, The Whisky a Go Go, The Hollywood Palladium, The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and The Wadsworth Theatre,” says the website.
Gina was active in historic preservation and formed a non-profit organization, Friends of the Raymond Theatre, to save the historic landmark theatre. She had been awarded Pasadena’s Best Citizen of the Year, Pasadena’s Best Historic Preservation Organization and Best Preservation organization in California by the California Preservation Foundation. She also sat on the Board of Directors for Hollywood Heritage, according to the Colorado Music Business Organization website.
Some of the artists Gina booked included Phil Collins, Tina Turner, Motley Crue, Simple Minds, Fleetwood Mac and many other Who’s Who of world pop music.
Her mother Maureen who was born on 9 January 1937 was the only Sri Lankan representative to win an award at a Miss Universe pageant after finishing as the runner-up at the 1955 event. A product of the Holy Family Convent in Colombo, Maureen married Mario Armond Zamparelli in 1958. Zamparelli was an American artist and designer, best known for his connection with Howard Hughes. Hughes was an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. For 18 years, Zamparelli was Chief Executive Designer of Hughes’ empire. The film The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio was based on 20 years of Hughes’ life, described as an eccentric phase of his life.
Many of Gina’s fans and friends have been mourning her death on social media from the day she passed away at a relatively young age. According to a Face Book post, a friend said three days before her death, Gina was in grave health and was taken to ER on April 25 after a fall.
“The first scans showed a mass in her brain. She had emergency surgery to relieve the pressure in her skull, followed about a week later by a biopsy. On May 4th we received the news we dreaded to hear. Gina was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a very aggressive cancer of the brain. The same one that Republican Senator John McCain has, however his is much more localized and he was able to have surgery to cut a large portion of the tumour out. Gina’s tumour is in the centre of her brain with several lesions around the main tumour and she is not able to have surgery due to sensitive location of the tumour,” the post has said.
Maureen who acted in several Hollywood movies (The King and I, Fort Bowie, Gun Fever, The Adventures of Hiram Holiday, Moroccan Halk Moth, Pillars of the Sky and the British TV Series Captain David Grief) still lives in the US and has two other daughters. Her husband passed away in September 2012.
